US Politics

Seated between teenage survivors of the Florida school shooting, President Donald Trump said during an Oval Office listening session Wednesday that arming teachers and posting gun-toting veterans in schools could deter or stop school shooters. His comments came during an emotional meeting that...

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was put on the defensive Wednesday by angry students, teachers and parents who are demanding stronger gun-control measures after the shooting rampage that claimed 17 lives at a Florida high school. One of those confronting the Florida senator at a CNN's "Stand Up" town...

President Trump hosted an extraordinarily emotional debate over guns and schools at the White House on Wednesday, listening for more than an hour as student survivors and grieving parents parried ideas to prevent firearms deaths, their gentle disputes hinting at the nation’s divisions. The president...

Spilling out wrenching tales of lost lives and stolen security, students and parents appealed to President Donald Trump on Wednesday to set politics aside and protect America's school children from the scourge of gun violence. Trump listened intently to the raw emotion and pledged action, including...

Two senior U.S. Geological Survey officials have stepped down after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke demanded that they provide his office with confidential data on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska before it was released to the general public. Murray Hitzman and Larry Meinert — who had served...

The Supreme Court sharply limited the legal protections for corporate whistleblowers on Wednesday, ruling they are not shielded from being fired under a federal law unless they have reported a potential fraud to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The justices conceded their ruling might gut...

Some Federal Reserve policymakers raised concerns last month about the potential for higher inflation and financial instability because of stronger economic growth triggered by the recently enacted tax cuts, according to an account of the meeting released on Wednesday. Early signs that the effects...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suggesting the president's supporters should pressure Sessions to focus the investigation into Russian election meddling on President Barack Obama's administration. Taking to Twitter, Trump said that the meddling...

More US Politics

Top Democrats are calling on Congress to give the FBI $300 million to fight potential foreign interference in this year's midterm elections, a request that comes just days after the Justice Department indicted Russians for meddling in the 2016 presidential contest. The letter being sent Wednesday...

Republican leaders of the Pennsylvania Legislature said Wednesday they will soon ask the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the imposition of new congressional district maps, two days after they were announced by the state's highest court. House Speaker Mike Turzai said that later Wednesday he and his...

To hear President Donald Trump tell it, he is tougher than former president Barack Obama. He is smarter than Obama - more shrewd, more effective, more respected. The 45th president is, by his own accounting, superlative to the 44th in almost every way. In private and in public, while devising policies...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signaled an openness to modest gun-control measures following what he called an "evil massacre" at a South Florida high school last week that left 17 dead and prompted passionate calls from teenagers for reform. Trump directed the Justice Department to draft a...

The deadly school shooting in Florida has moved President Trump to call for a ban on devices that turn legal firearms into deadly automatic assault rifles. But some gun control supporters expressed skepticism: He has promised action before in response to a mass killing, only to drop it when Americans’...

US Politics

Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., who once spearheaded an unsuccessful bipartisan agreement to strengthen gun laws, said Tuesday that he plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would expand background checks on firearm purchases, giving a jolt to gun-control efforts in the wake of last...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced he is convening a task force that will focus on cyber security, including efforts to interfere in U.S. elections. The announcement from the country's top law enforcement official comes on the heels of a special counsel indictment Friday that alleged...

A lawyer linked to two of President Trump’s former campaign aides ensnared in the continuing Russia inquiry has pleaded guilty to lying to investigators for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, previously worked at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a prominent...

Campaigning to keep his job, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Tuesday he had no intention of quitting despite blistering findings of travel abuses connected to his 11-day trip to Europe. He issued an extraordinary warning to VA staff rebelling against him: Get back in line or get out....

The Supreme Court made clear again Tuesday that the government has broad power to restrict and regulate firearms, dismissing a 2nd Amendment challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for new gun purchases. While the court has ruled that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of law-abiding...

The Trump administration took new steps Tuesday to loosen health insurance rules, moving to allow the sale of more short-term health plans that do not need to offer consumers a full range of health protections. The proposed regulations — which represent the latest in a series of administrative...

A Clinton-Obama sex tape using body doubles. A Facebook page promoting Texas independence riddled with grammatical mistakes. Islamic State anthems blasting out during the nightshift. The U.S. indictment centered on a Russian troll farm only scratches the surface of the St. Petersburg agency that...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday encouraged Republicans to fight Pennsylvania's new court-imposed map of congressional districts, issued a day earlier in a move expected to improve Democrats' chances at chipping away at the GOP's U.S. House majority. Trump tweeted that Republicans should challenge...

Don’t feel bad if you’re mystified by what’s going on with the Trump-Russia investigations. There’s a blizzard of misinformation out there. But if you read this, you’ll have a grip. Q. What’s being investigated? A. Any connections between the Russian government and people connected with Donald...

More than 6 in 10 Americans fault Congress and President Donald Trump for not doing enough to prevent mass shootings, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with most Americans continuing to say these incidents are more reflective of problems identifying and addressing mental health...

The map of congressional districts imposed by Pennsylvania's high court for the state's 2018 elections will set off a new legal battle, reconfigure perhaps dozens of campaigns and give Democrats a boost in their mission to wrest control of the U.S. House. The map of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional...

President Donald Trump on Monday night threw his full support behind Mitt Romney's bid to be the next U.S. senator from Utah, writing on Twitter that he would be a "worthy successor" to retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. The endorsement is significant because Trump had previously encouraged Hatch...

The mystery surrounding strange symptoms of illness experienced by at least two dozen U.S. diplomats stationed in Havana has still not been resolved. More than a year after the symptoms were first reported, and the U.S. government blamed them on “attacks” against the diplomats, a new report by...

When the U.S. government approved Ricardo Magpantay, his wife and young children to immigrate to America from the Philippines, it was 1991. By the time a visa was available, it was 2005, and his children could not come with him because they were now adults. More than a decade later, his children...

While Russian officials scoff at a U.S. indictment charging 13 Russians with meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, several people who worked at the same St. Petersburg "troll factory" say they think the criminal charges are well-founded. Marat Mindiyarov, a former commenter at the innocuously...

When FBI agents raided the northern Virginia home of President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul J. Manafort Jr. on July 26, they came with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. They arrived before dawn, forced the front door lock and burst in with a no-knock warrant, tactics typically used in...

President Donald Trump signaled support for one piece of gun control legislation on Monday, five days after a mass shooting at a Florida high school left 17 people dead and scores injured. "The president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system," Sarah Huckabee Sanders,...

President Donald Trump lashed out with fresh anger about the intensifying Russia probe over the weekend, accusing Democrats of enabling a foreign adversary to interfere in the 2016 election and attacking the FBI as well as his own national security adviser. In a defiant and error-laden tweetstorm...

A former top aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days — and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul Manafort, the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign. The change of heart by Trump’s former deputy campaign...

Before Friday, when special counsel Robert S. Mueller III handed down a damning indictment against Russians for 2016 election meddling, it was much easier for President Trump to dismiss the entire inquiry as a Democratic hoax and witch hunt. Trump had long sought to discredit claims of Russian...

President Donald Trump lashed out at the FBI Saturday night, saying the agency "missed all of the many signals" sent by the suspect in the Florida school shooting and arguing they are "spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign." Trump said on Twitter: "This...

Former Vice President Joe Biden is tiptoeing toward a potential run in 2020, even broaching the possibility during a recent gathering of longtime foreign policy aides. Huddled in his newly opened office steps from the U.S. Capitol, Biden began a planning meeting for his new diplomacy center by...

Not long after Marat Mindiyarov started working at the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll factory indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on Friday, he began hearing about the coveted "Facebook Department." There, workers could earn more money and work alongside a younger, hipper crowd....

As much of the country was gripped Wednesday by horrific images from the mass shooting at a Florida high school, two dozen senior Trump administration officials worked frantically into the night to thwart what they considered a different national security threat. The looming danger on the minds...

Doug Manchester, the billionaire nominated by President Donald Trump to be ambassador to the Bahamas, made a fortune as a real estate developer in San Diego while also earning a reputation for his philanthropy, conservative convictions and lavish lifestyle. In 2011, Manchester, then 69, decided...

President Donald Trump's national security adviser said Saturday there was "incontrovertible" evidence of a Russian plot to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election, a blunt statement that shows how significantly the new criminal charges leveled by an American investigator have upended the political debate...

Most politicians would have been swallowed up in scandal after new details emerged Friday of an alleged affair — with a Playboy Playmate, no less — that occurred the same weekend of a reported dalliance with a porn star. Not Donald Trump. In eight pages of handwritten notes published by the New...

President Donald Trump, as he often does while responding to natural disasters, mass shootings or unfolding crises, spent much of his time congratulating the responders rather than memorializing the victims of Wednesday's school shooting during a visit here Friday. Trump, in two quick visits to...

Most politicians would have been swallowed up in scandal after new details emerged Friday of an alleged affair — with a Playboy Playmate, no less — that occurred the same weekend of a reported dalliance with a porn star. Not Donald Trump. In eight pages of handwritten notes published by the New...

In an extraordinary indictment, the U.S. special counsel accused 13 Russians Friday of an elaborate plot to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, charging them with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary...